


It's Only Just Out of Reach

by brieflybe



Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:01:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24950512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brieflybe/pseuds/brieflybe
Summary: He doesn’t tell Baz. He doesn’t tell Penny either, doesn’t tell anyone - really, except that the amount of shit Simon’s not telling Baz is firmly graduating from “a pile of secrets” to “a pile of lies”, and Simon does have the capacity to feel guilty. It’s like, the only capacity he’s got left.~Simon decides to remove his wings. Things spiral, including Simon himself.
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Comments: 8
Kudos: 49
Collections: Carry On Remix





	It's Only Just Out of Reach

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Visinata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Visinata/gifts).
  * Inspired by [On Love's Light Wings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6099556) by [Visinata](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Visinata/pseuds/Visinata). 



> The title is from the song Something's Coming from West Side Story.
> 
> I chose to do an interpretation on the premise and not another POV, since I wanted to deal with Wayward Son baggage through the premise. 
> 
> The original fic is so lovely, please read it if you hadn't already!

Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start

And I bet and you exploded in my heart

And I forget, I forget the movie song

When you going to realize, it wa s just that the time was wrong, Juliet?

Romeo and Juliet / The Killers

  
  


He doesn’t tell Baz. He doesn’t tell Penny either, doesn’t tell anyone - really, except that the amount of shit Simon’s not telling Baz is firmly graduating from “a pile of secrets” to “a pile of lies”, and Simon does have the capacity to feel guilty. It’s like, the only capacity he’s got left.

He doesn’t want anyone to stop him, is the thing - and he doesn’t want anyone to not stop him either. He doesn’t want anyone to know, doesn’t want anyone to notice, or see him, or have an opinion. Baz has got an opinion about everything. He’s got an opinion about Simon’s taste in middle-eastern food, he’s got an opinion about Simon’s haircut, he’s got an opinion about Simon’s wings, about Simon’s tail. 

Baz’s attention is this searing sensation of judgement, like - Simon has messed up and now Simon is burning, like - Simon has flown to close to the stupid sun, and now Simon must chuck off his stupid wings and fall. Simon would probably die without it, but he would like just the one day - to make some decisions without wondering whether Baz would care; how Baz would care; whether Baz would hate it and whether Baz would hate it enough to leave and when is Baz going to leave, anyway, because its the waiting that’s really fucking Simon up. 

He’s pretending, then. That this is a Baz Pitch Doesn’t Pay Any Attention to Me Day, so Simon can torch his entire life if he so wishes. He’s going to get rid of the stupid wings. He’s going to get rid of the stupid tail. He is going to be a proper Normal and the idea makes him feel like he might disappear. Like that would be a good thing. 

He wonders whether Baz would have wanted to accompany him. Probably busy. Probably not. 

So on the day of the surgery (can it be called a surgery considering there are twelve different spells but zero knives involved?), he gets up at 7 AM, surprising both Penny and Baz (whom Penny has texted so that he could have an opinion on the subject). When Penny asked where he was going, Simon had grunted. When Baz asked where he was going, Simon had told him he’d stop by in the evening. They were both appeased after that. Simon’s recovery is something that they both approve of but are afraid to meddle with. Baz, especially, only trusts Simon’s good days to an extent, takes Simon’s self-doubts and self-loathing personally - like Simon’s trash-talked his favourite book, or whatever. Simon has been given space. Simon has always done badly with space. He makes bad decisions. He pushes away people who are already away. 

Whatever. He’s on his way to the Doctor, and he’s not afraid, and he’s not about to change his mind. There is no right or wrong decision - about your winged magical mutation. You just have to make some decision. Any decision. Keeping them has always felt like he’s postponing ridding of them than like a decision in its own right. He wishes - that he could fly one last time. He hasn’t flown since Watford, carrying a wide-eyed Baz above fire and brimstone and what was left of his magical castle. He has a feeling that if he’ll go on a flight right now, he won’t come back down - ever. He’ll be flying too close to the sun, he’ll be flying for forever, he’ll be a lost boy sans Peter Pan, wandering the sky without leadership. He’ll be shot down. 

He takes the train out of London, in the end. 

Agatha is waiting for him in the entrance to Dr. Wellbelove’s clinic. It’s like a scene out of the past, for a moment, Simon walking, determined, towards a beautiful girl, the most beautiful girl, who’s concerned for him, who’s given him a place within her family, whose father is a doctor and has never tried to murder Simon, even once. 

Simon wishes that she would leave. 

“Hi,” he says. “What are you doing here?” 

She’s shrugging at him, twisting her fingers. Simon’s thinking about how both Baz and she can make fire just appear. He’s thinking about kissing Baz Pitch inside a burning forest. He’s thinking about Baz’s face, as he was looking at Watford burning, as if this is the hell he was always promised. Simon was lifting him towards the fire. Simon was taking him away from the fire. Simon -

Has got a fucking tail. “No way you would have ever made out with me if I had a tail, eh?” he asks. 

That startles a laugh out of her. She’s shaking her head at him. “You can barely control it, Simon,” she says, not unkindly. “You’ve knocked half of my horse china collection as it was.” 

“Baz doesn’t mind,” he says quietly. He’s not sure why. He’s not sure why it matters that she knows that someone can be annoyed with him but stay. He knows that it matters to Baz, her existence, and that he won in the end. 

“Baz has got literal fangs,” she snaps. 

“Shhhh,” Simon warns.

She’s rolling her eyes. He wonders how she’s taken it, when she found out. Simon would have broken shit, but she didn’t love Baz as much as Simon does. She didn’t love Simon at all. “My father told me that you’re going through the operation today and that no-one is coming to see you off.” She’s biting her lower lips. “I came to keep you company.” 

That was nice of her. 

“Oh,” he says. “Thank you.” He still wishes that she would leave. “I’m sorry they won’t let you out of the country,” he adds. 

“Yes,” she snipes. “Me too.” 

He wants to ask her whether he’s doing the right thing. Because she doesn’t care about him all that much, and may have a real opinion, not one muddled by feelings and hurt and ambition. ‘Of course, you should get rid of the tail, Simon,’ she would say. ‘It’s  _ a tail _ .’

But underneath the realization that she was never going to be the great love of his life, the relief that came with that, he can’t help but be slightly afraid of her. This person who called his bluff before everyone, who didn’t feel loved by him and was tired of being poorly protected instead. Baz doesn’t have the power to leave Simon as Agatha had, and Simon has treated Baz much worse. Agatha is the strongest among them. 

“I mean, you’re doing the right thing,” Agatha tells him, tearing through his thoughts. 

Simon flinches. He’s not sure why - it happens to him sometimes, when he’s pulled out of his own head. 

Simon tilts his head to the side. “Am I?”

“I’m pretty sure, yes.” 

Simon shakes his head. He doesn’t want to be doing the right thing, really. He despises this - when there is a clear-cut objectively correct option, while he’s into a different option, often a clear-cut objectively wrong one. He wishes he could run. Maybe he’ll suggest smuggling Agatha out of the country. Freedom of movement, and all that. “Maybe Penny can talk to her mom about removing the ban on you leaving the country?” he suggests instead. 

“No offence, Simon,” Agatha starts, meaning full offence, “but Penny is a giant mess right now and her mother won’t listen to her.”

“Oh,” is all he has to say.

Which is when Dr. Wellbelove calls them inside. Agatha gives him this sharp look, like she’s about to do something abhorrent - say, jumping from the back of a flying horse into a swamp (hypothetically) and it’s all Simon fault.

Simon’s looking at the floor. 

He could spare both of them. 

He could call Baz. 

He shakes his head - he shoulders, his wings, a whole-body movement that almost knocks over a lamp on a nearby dresser. 

He goes in.

He flies out. He doesn’t mean to. He doesn’t mean to make a scene. Dr. Wellbelove is supportive and nice and a good citizen and a decent person and he’s got a (semi-)nice daughter that Simon used to (semi-)love and he deserves better than Simon screaming in the middle of his clinic, knocking down a shelf full of herbs and some picture of Agatha riding a horse. 

Simon was not ready for the pain. It’s the dumbest thing. Penny had disintegrated his wings in the past. He remembers the cracking of bones and the tearing of the skin. He remembers the noise that he made, something animal-like and wounded, he remembers the smell of rotting flesh. 

It’s different this time. The touch of a wand against his shoulder burns and the spell is all-encompassing. Something - magic - is tearing Simon apart. He’s going to disappear, like Spiderman in that Avengers movie. There acid flowing from the tips of his wings to the rest of him, his lungs, his knees, his neck, his eyes - he can’t see, he can’t think, he’s going to stop existing and he didn’t even tell Baz where he’s going, he’s going to survive but be forever in pain, he’s never going to stop hurting, and his screaming will bother Penny and he’ll have to move. He doesn’t fit polite society anyway. He should have always been living in the woods. 

Dr. Wellbelove deserved better than Simon tearing through his spell, tearing through his door, tearing through his garden. He deserved better than Simon pushing him against his desk on his frantic attempt to leave. 

He flies out. The cold air soothes whatever it has happened to him. He wasn’t breathing before, probably. He hasn’t been breathing for a while now. He flies out, he flies away. He’ll fly until somebody will hunt him out, shoot him down. He will never be anything but this. 

He’s thinking about the last time, stealing the magic from Baz’s home, and how it had made Baz like him, and how Baz had told him to ran, and how he could have gone on forever and ever, could have flown for all eternity, could have sucked the entirety of the magic in the UK and leave nothing, leave England Normal like he is. He could fly through the entire world and take everything until there was nothing left and destroy life as they knew it, and somehow, having chosen a different path, he sorta feels like a loser. 

He doesn’t notice that he’s in Watford until he’s already past the gate. He stops, then, finds himself crashing into thin air, no magic involved - just himself, the inside of his head. He’s wobbling slightly, turning in place, trying to find his footing, before his diving, diving, diving, landing on his knees, on the grass. The Wavering Wood is still on fire. It’s contained, but it will never stop being on fire. Simon pulls himself together - into himself, folding his knees into his chest, his chin into his knees. He could stay here forever, though he’s waiting for something, probably. He isn’t sure.

Baz creeps over him like the tides, blocking out the light, long hair and long legs, sharp coat, sharp smile. His eyes are dark and his mouth is twisted in something Simon doesn’t recognize, his hands are inside his pockets as if to say he’s not about to help Simon up, and he’s looking down at him. Way down. 

“Yo,” Simon says, eventually. 

Baz, who did not foresee Simon stealing and butchering the opening line, startles. “What the actual fuck, Snow.” This isn’t a question - not exactly. 

Simon can’t say “I can explain” since he can’t explain most things. There is no point in telling a lie whose bluff will be called so quickly. Simon can’t say “I’m sorry” since that pisses off. He can’t say “Go away”, because he doesn’t want Baz to leave. He just sits there. He’s leaning against the back wall the White Chapel, Baz towering over him. 

“Are you going to get up, Snow?” 

Simon shrugs. 

“Snow -”

“Sure,” Simon snaps, before lifting himself upwards all at once - into his legs, into the air, flying with his back to the wall, wings and tail scraping against the stone, until he finds a Windowsill to perch over like a gargoyle - not so tall so Baz can’t hear him, just far enough that he can’t reach for him. 

Baz mutters something under his breath. Ever since university, he curses like a Normal when he thinks that no one is listening. 

Baz is looking up at him, then, like Simon is insane in a bad way, like Simon is hurting him, and Simon, three meters above solid ground, wants very badly to fall. “I thought that I could go through with it,” he mumbles, then repeats himself, louder, since Baz probably can’t hear him. He doesn’t know what Agatha has told him. He still doesn’t trust Agatha with Baz, in a way. She doesn’t understand him. She’ll only end up saying the wrong thing. 

Baz tilts his head to the side. He seems to have heard Simon both times, which is when Simon remembers that - vampire, super hearing. Whatever. “Seems like you could go through with it,” Baz answers. “Just didn’t stick.”

Simon doesn’t have anything to say to that. 

“Would you come down here already?”

Simon doesn’t come down.

Baz’s sigh. 

Simon is like a child, most days. In the sense that he never really got to be one, but also never really got to grow into anything else. He’s this twisted, mutant human thing, that can’t communicate with the people it loves. “So - “ he swallows. “I’m okay, I think.” He closes his eyes, opens them. Breathes through his mouth. “I was screaming pretty loud, before, but like, everything’s back to normal -”

“You rejected a powerful spell with your wings.” Baz asserts. 

Simon blinks at him. “I’m sure I didn’t.”

“Sure seem like you did.” Baz stares at him, eyebrows raised. 

Simon shrugs. When in doubt… “What do you want me to say?” 

Baz isn’t looking at him anymore. “Wellbelove -” he starts, then backtracks. “I was worried about you. Because of what Wellbelove told me.” He shakes his head slightly. “You could say that you’re okay.”

“I already said that.” 

“Yeah, it’s not good enough, I think.” 

“Well, then what do you want from me -” he snaps, but Baz is into his own tantrum now.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell us?” 

There we go. “Us?” Simon question, because he’s in the business of being a jerk. 

“Me,” Baz grits out. “Obviously I don’t care about Bunce. You should have told me.” 

“Look, it doesn’t matter anymore.” He tells him. “If it can’t be done - then I’m stuck like this.” He flips his wings a bit, moves his tail against the stones like a lizard.

"I would have come with you had you told me, Snow –"

"But it failed!" He doesn't mean to shout. Some bird, perched next to him on the windowsill, startles, flies away from him. "It failed, okay?" he repeats. "I knew it would." He inhales. "This is it. This is what you get. So…" He gestures around him. He’s sitting atop a black hole, really, when you think about it. He could have let it spread. 

“I don’t get anything actually,” Baz shrugs, Simon-like. “I don’t get a text, or a phone call, the crisps I asked for… My Oyster card back…”

He wonders what it says about them, sometimes. When he’s being extra petty. Like, how can they be together if their happily ever after could never align - that Simon’s life had to fall apart for Baz’s to finally click. Like, if Simon is what Baz needs to be happy, and Simon is gone, is Baz unhappy, then? Is that a power that he has? Is that the only power that he has? 

He doesn’t want to think about it. 

It’s all he ever thinks about, sometimes. 

“I didn’t want you to be there,” he says finally. “In case it failed. I didn’t want you to get excited about it. Or -” he adds quickly when Baz opens his mouth to interject. “I don’t know. I just knew that it would fail.” 

Baz is still staring daggers at him. “Why go, then?” 

“Felt like I had to try,” he admits. “Like I will always wonder - if I didn’t try.”

“I wouldn’t care, Snow,” Baz finally says. He sounds tired. Weary. He’s moving in place slightly. his edges blurred, but maybe those are just Simon’s eyes. 

“Wouldn’t you?” Simon tilts his head to the side, Baz-like. “You care about everything.” He says. “You’re bothered by everything.” 

“You think I’m bothered by your wings?” Baz looks - stricken, probably. Simon can’t really see him anymore. He doesn’t know for sure. 

Simon doesn’t know what to say. He could never deal with the fact that Baz wanted him like he’s an actual person. Like Simon is an ever-growing ever-evolving being, greater than the sum of its parts. Thing is, it’s not difficult to be greater than the sum of Simon’s part. 

“I don’t know,” Simon tells him, eventually. “I don’t know what you think of me. Like - I know you care about me? You told me that you do, and you - you’ve done… stuff. I know -” words are stumbling out of him, and they don’t even feel like his own, even though it’s all he’s ever been thinking. His arms don’t feel like his own, either. His stomach. His fingers, twisted around each other. “I know you want me. I just don’t get -” He can’t finish this. This sentence, his thoughts. “How you’re stuck with me.” 

He can’t see Baz at all - at this point. He can’t see anything.

“ _ On Love’s Light Wings. _ ” Baz says, voice clear, and Simon rolls his eyes, or he wants to, except that he can’t breath, really, so that takes precedent, except that Baz is - gone, Baz is floating through the air like an idiot Mage with wings, standing in front of Simon like there’s solid ground beneath his feet. 

“That’s new,” Simon says. His voice is also foreign to him. He’s left himself somewhere along he’s flight here, he’s pretty sure. He doesn’t remember. 

“It really isn’t,” Baz tell him. “You’re a fucking idiot. This isn’t new at all.” 

“Oh.” he says. 

Baz reaches out his hand. “Can I -”

Simon lurches, then. Simon falls, Simon is falling, his feet are set against the stone wall but his body crashes into Baz’s, and he didn’t mean to, he’s not sure what happened, his face is buried in Baz’s neck, his hand resting against Baz’s arm. And then there’s Baz fingers running across Simon’s back, through his hair. Baz murmuring “Have I told you I liked your haircut?” and “I think it’s hot that you’ll never have to take the Tube,” and kissing the mole on Simon’s collar bone.

Simon doesn’t mean to fall apart in the air, leaning his entire weight against Baz Pitch like an idiot. This isn’t a spell for two people, probably, because they spiral slowly downwards, their feet landing roughly on form ground, Baz stumbling slightly, arms around Simon. 

“I’m never getting rid of the wings,” he mumbles into Baz’s neck.

Baz rests his lips against Simon’s temple, almost kissing him, not quite. “It’s okay,” he says. “I’m catching up.” 

“Yeah,” Simon says. “Yeah - I -” he swallows. “I could have done that as well.” 

Baz snorts. “Is that so?” 

Baz lets them stumble into the ground, then, a controlled fall, a trust fall, Baz halfway lying on the grass, Simon leaning against him, weirdest Snow-Angel ever. Watford is on fire. Simon doesn’t know what to say. He feels like they’re both flammable. 

Simon nods, hard, so that Baz can feel it, his tail snaked around Baz’s legs, his wings blocking out the sun. He can feel the sharp edges of Baz’s smile against his cheek. 


End file.
